Maybe that’s all that needs to be said. Ritual isn’t therapy, nor should it be therapy. Therapy is valuable….ritual is valuable…and it needs to be stated that therapy and ritual approach self change in very different ways.

If we try to turn ritual into therapy, we lose the edge that is often present in dynamic, groundbreaking group religious experiences.

There are reasons why we assure ritual participants that they will be safe, but not necessarily comfortable. There are reasons why it is clearly stated at events that ritual is not a substitute for therapy.